In contactless chip cards, there are known ways of transmitting binary data from the user device to the card by means of a signal at a carrier frequency of 13.56 MHz, for example, that is amplitude modulated by the binary digits of the code to be transmitted. The amplitude-modulated signals have, for example, the shape shown in the graph of FIG. 2a in which the difference between a digit 1 (reference 90) and a digit 0 (reference 92) appears in the amplitude variation.
This amplitude variation of the signal received by the card would be easy to detect by means of a fixed threshold if the received signals were to have the same mean level over the course of time. However, this is not since the level especially varies as a function of the distance between the card and the user apparatus. This distance may vary, for example, when the card is being handled for insertion into and removal from the user apparatus. This level may thus vary from one apparatus to another or from one card to another.